While Charlotte and I were visiting J. in Moscow, J. came home from work one Friday evening and said “I have a crazy idea…”

J. says this a lot, and his ideas are often truly crazy. So I braced myself, and listened patiently as he told me about the overnight train departing later that night for Helsinki, via St Petersburg.

Usually, when J. has crazy ideas like this, I nod and smile, and go about my business. But this one caught my attention. Because, after nine months in nasty polluted Beijing, Charlotte had developed a nasty cough that woke her (and me) up every night, and that refused to go away. My poor little kiddo was in serious need of some fresh Nordic air.

There was no way I was hopping on the midnight train to Helsinki. But I was willing to see what other realistic options were available. A short internet search later, we had found ourselves awesomely cheap plane tickets to Oslo, departing the next morning for three days.

We spent a wonderful weekend in the Norwegian capital. In addition to the delicious fresh air, we scarfed down fresh seafood (I wont even tell you how much we paid for it, holy crap  Norway is pricey!), wandered around the city, saw some pretty sights, took a short ferry boat ride (by far Charlotte’s favourite part of the trip), and even found what might be the coolest playground in the world.

Peel & eat shrimp at Aker Brygge harbour

Oslo Botanical Garden

Norwegian Museum of Cultural History, an open air museum with buildings from various periods in Norwegian history. Charlotte appears to be about the same height as a fully-grown 17th century Norwegian

Fill ‘er up! At the Cultural History Museum

Vigeland Sculpture Park. Gorgeous pieces, though all the naked men playing with small children were a little creepy…

Hanging out at the awesome playground in Frogner Park. Seriously, I’ve never seen such a huge, well-designed play structure before!

And I’m happy to report that after three days of gulping down fresh air, Charlotte’s cough was almost gone! Let’s hope it stays that way